Monday, June 15, 2009

Across the Floe River

Since I got Amanda interested in Hordes of the Things she has expressed an interest in having an army of her own – preferably one of “HOTT chicks” – some kick-ass, amazon warrior wimmins. She is a closet fan (or... not-so-closet, now…) of action films with hot chicks flying on wires kicking ass – Charlies Angels, Matrix, Ultraviolet, Underworld, etc, etc.

Like I was going to pass up an opportunity to not only be buying toys that my wife totally approved of – but even had her chipping in here and there!?

I have finally finished enough to field a 24AP army. I still have a number of optional stands to finish painting but we thought we’d try out what she’s got so far!

SITUATION

The Sapphic League of Unity and Togetherness has been liberating women from tyranny and oppression throughout the magical land of Timm. Unfortunately there are a great many oppressive tyrants throughout the land so their numbers have grown and grown and they have come to control a considerable amount of territory…

While they are mostly peaceful and have no immediate territorial or imperial ambitions, they do vigorously defend their lands (and occasionally raid across the borders for acceptable “breeders”).

Gukra the Merciless – warlord of the Burgark Orc Tribe thought a bunch of helpless women might be easy pickin’s and lead his host across the Floe River.

SCENARIO

This was a pretty standard HOTT scenario with the Orcs as attackers, the Sapphic League of Unity and Togetherness defending.

Amanda and her “HOTT Chick” Army – The Sapphic League of Unity and Togetherness

The Orcs, having crossed the river marshall their forces and form a formidable battle line!

The view from the other end. (I think I had the better “view”, distracting though it was…!?)

The hard-hitting Dwarvish Shieldmaidens march out to meet the Orcs head-on, along with the Centaurs, their General and the Magician.

I was plagued with bad PIP rolls to start the game rolling one on my first turn and two on the second, and then another one or two on the third… so was a bit slow to get going.

CRUNCH!! The lines meet! Unfortunately it is the Giants and Trolls lined up opposite the Shieldmaidens – Blades and Behemoths, not a good match up. The Horde and Beasts, again held up by bad PIP rolls.

Same thing, different view.

One stand of Shieldmaidens held their ground against the relentless assaults of Gukra the Merciless, but their sisters off to the right were forced to give ground to the behemoths…

The Leagues line was slowly forced back and eventually the Behemoths punched a hole through it. Against I wasn’t able to exploit this for a turn or two due to bad PIP rolls. Though I have to say Amanda had her fair share of bad rolls and I had an insane number of lucky rolls – almost always scoring fives and sixes whenever she happened to have overwhelming odds and/or quick-kill opportunities…

Eventually the Leagues main line was all but smashed – only the Magician and General held back the onslaught. Things were looking down, she had lost four stands (three Blade and the Riders) and I had lost none! Luckily Amanda FINALLY made some ensorcellement rolls and set the behemoths, on after the other, and then again, to temporary flight… which messed up things for me.

I finally got some PIPs and got the Wolves moving (but not enough to flank here, not that it mattered as Beasts quick-kill shooters) but the nasty Archers held their ground!?

Then she had the PIPs going for her and flanked the wolves with the Witch Elves (Warband) and took them out one at a time…

A couple times I had their General engaged to her front by my Warband and flanked by my general – not wanting the heroes to engage each other directly – as that’s an instant death situation – which I generally try to avoid.

After this point most of the rest of the pictures I took were out of focus…?! I actually got my Hero General in contact with their stronghold! Even odds for tactical factors, all I had to do was roll higher… no such luck!

The Libby charged in to save the day and struck down Gukra the Merciless!! That didn’t quite end things. Though I had lost my general I hadn’t lost MORE than Amanda, we were even. So on her next turn Libby charged down a stand of goblin Horde – thinking that would be an easy kill and end the game… then I rolled a six. The game did end that turn, however, because her Magician – who was now on a roll – forced back my Orc warband into a poorly positioned Behemoth and that was that….

It was fun to play again – as we hadn’t gotten a game in together for a while now. I think I finally found a use for horde…. They didn’t really do much but they did block a large area and threaten flanks while the behemoths got down to the business of crunching and munching things…

Amanda really pulled it out of the fire to win after being down four stands! Bravo!

10 comments:

Awesome report! I love to see women put down the pain on slave-taking, misogynist males! And to top it all off, they came back from a substantial deficit! Yay for the league (sorry for you though Tim!).

When playing HOTT with 25/28mm figures the ground scale is 10mm=25paces (or 40mm=100paces) which isn't a convenient multiple to be measuring with rulers (like, for example, with 15mm figures 100paces=1"). So I simply made measuring sticks marked out in 100 paces broad bands, and later added (on most) intermediate 50 pace markings.